Vegan Cheese Harmless?

One of my whole foods lectures at Bastyr University centers around de-mystifying how fats and oils are processed and refined for human consumption. Learning how palm oil is produced, so I could bring this information to my classes, was distressing.

Many food processors, seeking to eliminate trans-fat, which comes from partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, have switched to using palm oil. Palm oil comes from the fruit of the oil palm trees which grow in tropical climates. Palm oil is refined, bleached and deodorized for use in the food industry. It is orange-red in its pre-refined state. The fat is semi-solid at room temperature indicating that it is part saturated and part mono-unsaturated. This combo of fat types helps keep chocolate coverings firm but flexible. It can also create a fake butter spread like Smart Balance and still allow the company to claim that the product contains no trans fats. I’m not sure if this spread is balanced, but I know for sure it’s not smart.

The largest producer of palm oil is Indonesia. Rainforests are cleared to grow the oil palm trees. Rainforests support 500 times more species than North American forests. The UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) estimates that an area of Indonesian rain forest the size of six football fields is cut down every minute of every day to make way for palm oil production.

Palm oil production has been documented as a cause of substantial and often irreversible damage to the natural environment. Its impacts include: deforestation, habitat loss of critically endangered species such as the Orangutan and Sumatran Tiger, and a significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Rhinoceros and elephants are other casualties. When rainforests are cleared for production these wild animals are often shot or burned to clear the path.
The pollution factor is exacerbated because many rainforests in Indonesia and Malaysia lie atop peat bogs that store great quantities of carbon that are released when the forests are cut down and the bogs drained to make way for plantations. Environmental groups such as Greenpeace claim that the deforestation caused by making way for oil palm plantations is far more damaging for the climate than the benefits gained by switching to biofuel.
Read more in this report from the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Palm oil is an ingredient in many food and non-food products including but not limited to, cookies, crackers, popcorn, frozen dinners, low-fat dairy, candy, soap and cosmetics. One food that often (but not always) contains palm oil is vegan cheese. Here is the ingredients list for a typical vegan cheese:

There it is. I guess even worse is that some manufacturers have caught on to the treachery behind growing palm oil trees and cloak palm oil in the ingredient list as “non-hydrogenated vegetable oil”.
It is estimated that no less than 5,000 orangutans are killed every year to make way for palm oil. At this rate extinction of one of our closest relatives would occur within 10 years.

In earnest many friends seek the vegan lifestyle as a way of protecting farm animals from harm. I agree with sharply reducing or eliminating buying products that come from animals in confined animal feeding operations. But do we stop to consider the impact of food production on wild life?